Before Anthony goes onstage to perform Mary reads a telegram from the conveniently absent Douglas (Kay's husband) which says something to the effect that he hopes Anthony will sing better onstage than he does in the shower. What??????? A gifted tenor loses his ability to sing when he gets wet? And by the way what was the purpose of his character anyway? I don't think he uttered one line in the movie.
That's the least of the problems with the writing in III. The single most cringeworthy moment in movie history is after Michael and Vincent finish talking about Vincent's killing of the assassins sent to his apartment by Joey Zasa. Connie says "Michael, now they'll fear you" in the most pathetic, unconvincing voice imaginable. It's a cheap, shameless imitation of Vito's "And then they would fear you" statement to Bonasera in I. Just listening to it is painful! And it doesn't even make sense. Michael's been the head of the Corleone family for more than 25 years by that point, yet only now will they fear him? And only because his nephew killed two people who broke into his (Vincent's) apartment? Michael managed to defeat and wipe out the heads of the Five Families, and later had his own brother killed (albeit only after strong provocation by Fredo), yet none of that is enough to make him be feared (granted, Connie probably didn't consciously know about the Fredo killing)? But what Vincent did will, even though it wasn't even done on Michael's orders? Ridiculous!
